The Uprising shows us the Arab revolutions from the inside. It is a multi-camera, first-person account of that fragile, irreplaceable moment when life ceases to be a prison, and everything becomes possible again.

The Uprising

2013, Belgium/Great Britain, 79 mins.

This feature-length documentary is composed entirely of videos made by citizens and long-term residents of Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Syria and Yemen. The film uses this footage, not to recount the actual chronology of events or analyze their causes, but to create an imaginary pan-Arab uprising that exists (for the moment) only on the screen. It has screened at over twenty international film festivals, including Turin, Edinburgh, Bratislava, and MoMA’s Doc Fortnight

Peter will be joined by artist Ganzeer for a discussion to follow the screening.

Director’s statement: The Uprising is based, not on a naive belief in the power of spontaneous rebellion to usher in a perfect and just world, but on the incontrovertible evidence that video works. That it communicates an energy that can break down walls of isolation and fear, and transform people’s lives. That it can preserve the individual voice without which the largest crowd is worth nothing. And that this call to refuse the humiliation and ridicule that governments heap upon those they govern, and to try and live instead with honour and with dignity, can speak directly not only to the people of these six Arab nations, but to all of us, everywhere.

Peter Snowdon was born and brought up in Northumberland, England.  He moved to Paris in 1992 to teach English and to write.  In a moment of creative misunderstanding, he gave up poetry for political activism after reading Ivan Illich.  From 1997 to 2000 he lived in Egypt, where he was a journalist with Al-Ahram Weekly.  On his return to Europe, he began making agit-prop documentary films in collaboration with grassroots citizens’ groups.  Over time, his work has evolved beyond the purely political to engage with the experimental and avant-garde traditions, and to address wider philosophical issues.  His short films are distributed by the Collectif Jeune Cinema (Paris). The Uprising is his first feature-length film, and was produced as part of a practice-based Phd at the MAD Faculty (University of Hasselt/PXL), Belgium.  Peter is currently based in Glasgow, where teaches filmmaking at the University of the West of Scotland.

Ganzeer is the pseudonym of an Egyptian artist operating mainly between graphic design and contemporary art since 2007. He is not an author, comicbook artist, installation artist, painter, speaker, street artist, or videographer, though he has assumed these roles in a number of places around the world. His art has been shown in Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Finland, Germany, Jordan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, and the United States, as well as in myriad Cairo galleries.  Art in America Magazine has referred to Ganzeer’s work as “New Realism,” and the Huffington Post ranked him among “25 Street Artists from Around the World who are Shaking Up Public Art,” but Ganzeer rejects both labels and regards Bidoun magazine’s description of him as a “contingency artist” as probably the most accurate, while Ganzeer refers to his own practice as Concept Pop. Al-Monitor.com has placed him on a list of “50 People Shaping the Culture of the Middle East” (2013), and he is also one of the protagonists in a critically acclaimed documentary “Art War” (2014) by German director Marco Wilms.  Ganzeer is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. He can be reached by emailing shout(at)ganzeer.com